Arts & Entertainment
Baltimore arts briefs: Aug. 10
Spotlighters explore love, Hippo bingo and more


The Honey Dew Drops play the Creative Alliance in Baltimore this weekend. (Photo courtesy Jack Looney)
A country and folk fusion visits Baltimore
Creative Alliance, a collaboration of artists, performers and community members in the Baltimore area, is hosting Caleb Stine and the Honey Dew Drops on Saturday night at 8 p.m. at The Patterson (3134 Eastern Ave.).
Caleb Stine is a Baltimore country rocker who combines new and familiar tunes into his performances. He is linking up with the Honey Dew Drops, Laura Worman and Kagey Parrish, who have been featured on Prairie Home Companion.
Creative Alliance has been working since 1995 to bring together artists and audiences in order to build communities. In 2003, they opened the Patterson as multi-purpose arts center which includes two galleries, 200-seat theater, a classroom, media lab, live/work studios and a lounge.
General admission is $16 and member tickets are $11. For more information, visit creativealliance.org.
Spotlighters on love
Spotlighters Theatre (817 St. Paul St.) presents “The Things We Do: an evening of one acts,” an examination of what people would do for the ones they love, tonight at 8.
The show is a combination of comedic and dramatic moments that observe to what lengths people would go for their loved ones and how they find and push limits they did not know existed. The acts include “Protest,” where two people find a spark in an unexpected place, “Replay,” which reflects on moments we wish to regret, and “A Good Brain is Hard to Find,” which examines the relationship between monster and creator.
Adult tickets are $20 and student tickets are $16. For more information, visit spotlighters.org.
Not your average bingo night
Club Hippo (1 W. Eager St.) has its weekly gay bingo night on Wednesday starting at 8:30 to benefit the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore (GLCCB).
The night includes progressive jackpots and drinks specials all night. GLCCB promotes equality and understanding of Baltimore’s LGBT community while also providing them with services such as support groups and different events.
There are $3 drink specials all night. For more information, visit clubhippo.com
A sexy way to travel through time
Sticky Buns Burlesque performs their show “Strip Club Time Machine” on Thursday night at 9 at the Ottobar (2549 N. Howard St.).
Their fourth large-scale original production, “Strip Club Time Machine” observes burlesque and nudity through different eras. It is a feminist perspective on strip club culture.
Sticky Buns Burlesque is a Baltimore and D.C. group that routinely pushes boundaries both in burlesque and in society at large. They perform artful shows the challenges conventions while also being sexy and fun.
Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. For more information, visit stickybunsburlesque.com.

The 13th annual Hagerstown Pride Festival was held at Doubs Woods Park in Hagerstown, Md. on Saturday, June 21.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)






















Theater
‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater
‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’

‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical’
Through July 13
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.
$47 to $98
Sigtheatre.org
The raucous world of the counterculture journalist may not seem the obvious choice for musical theater, but the positive buzz surrounding Signature Theatre’s production of Joe Iconis’s “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” suggests otherwise.
As the titular, drug addled and gun-toting writer, Eric William Morris memorably moves toward his character’s suicide in 2005 at 67. He’s accompanied by an ensemble cast playing multiple roles including out actor George Salazar as Thompson’s sidekick Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, a bigger than life Mexican American attorney, author, and activist in the Chicano Movement who follows closely behind.
Salazar performs a show-stopping number — “The Song of the Brown Buffalo,” a rowdy and unforgettable musical dive into a man’s psyche.
“Playing the part of Oscar, I’m living my Dom daddy activist dreams. For years, I was cast as the best friend with a heart of gold. Quite differently, here, I’m tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ‘60s, and a rampant homophobia, almost folded into the culture.”
He continues, “My sexuality aside, I like to think that Oscar would be thrilled by my interpretation of him in that song.
“Our upbringings are similar. I’m mixed race – Filipino and Ecuadorian and we grew up similarly,” says Salazar, 39. “He didn’t fit in as white or Mexican American, and fell somewhere in the middle. Playing Oscar [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico], I pulled out a lot of experience about having to code switch before finally finding myself and being confident just doing my own thing.
“As we meet Oscar in the show we find exactly where’s he’s at. Take me or leave me, I couldn’t care less.”
In 2011, just three years after earning his BFA in musical theater from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Salazar fortuitously met Iconis at a bar in New York. The pair became fast friends and collaborators: “This is our third production,” says George. “So, when Joe comes to me with an idea, there hasn’t been a moment that I don’t trust him.”
In “Be More Chill,” one of Iconis’s earlier works, Salazar originated the role of Michael Mell, a part that he counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.
With the character, a loyal and caring friend who isn’t explicitly queer but appeals to queer audiences, Salazar developed a fervent following. And for an actor who didn’t come out to his father until he was 30, being in a place to support the community, especially younger queer people, has proved incredibly special.
“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think ‘dude musical,’ but I encourage all people to come see it.” Salazar continues, “Queer audiences should give the show a shot. As a musical, it’s entertaining, funny, serious, affecting, and beautiful. As a gay man stepping into this show, it’s so hetero and I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I took it upon myself that any of the multiple characters I play outside of Oscar, were going to be queer.
Queer friends have seen it and love it, says Salazar. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”) saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse during its run in California, and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time.
“Since the work’s inception almost 10 years ago, I was the first Oscar to read the script. In the interim, the characters’ relationships have grown but otherwise there have been no major changes. Still, it feels more impactful in different ways: It’s exciting to come here to do the show especially since Hunter S. Thompson was very political.”
Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, a criminal justice reporter for The Guardian, is enjoying his time here in D.C. “In a time when there are so many bans – books, drag queens, and travel — all I see is division. This is an escape from that.”
He describes the Hunter Thompson musical as Iconis’s masterpiece, adding that it’s the performance that he’s most proud of to date and that feels there a lot of maturity in the work.
“In the play, Thompson talks to Nixon about being a crook and a liar,” says Salazar. “The work speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country: We seem to take them one step forward and two steps back; the performance is almost art as protest.”
Photos
PHOTOS: Goodwin Living Pride Parade
Senior living and healthcare organization holds fifth annual march at Falls Church campus

The senior living and healthcare organization Goodwin Living held its fifth annual Pride Parade around its Bailey’s Crossroads campus in Falls Church, Va. with residents, friends and supporters on Thursday, June 12.
(Photos courtesy of Goodwin Living)










